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The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Employment Situation - December 2023 report on January 5. Here is a look at some of the data and what it may signal for hiring this year.
The Results at a Glance
While slightly higher than the previous year, unemployment remains at a low 3.7%.
Employment sectors that saw gains:
- Government
- Health care
- Social assistance
- Construction
Employment sectors that saw declines:
- Transportation
- Warehouse
Employment sectors that remained steady:
- Leisure and hospitality
- Retail trade
- Professional and business services
Long-term unemployment (jobless for more than 27 weeks) was largely unchanged at 1.2 million. This accounted for nearly 20% of unemployment in December 2023.
This is only a snapshot of the 42-page report, but overall, it signifies a leveling out in the economy with no significant gains or losses.
What Does it Mean for 2024?
With this job market stability, employers may be less willing to “outbid” for candidates. Wanting more for less has always been the ideal business model, but they may be less willing to offer remote-only work options or other additional incentives to get candidates to sign on the dotted line. If they are going to make extra concessions to land a candidate, they will want to make sure they are worth it.
As a result, this could lead to an increased use of hiring assessments.
For job seekers, economic stability may make them less willing to jump through hoops to land a job. This is especially true for those who are currently employed. Applicants who are under-employed or unemployed may be willing to put up with some extra steps to land a job, but employers shouldn’t count on that.
A high-friction process, including the addition of lengthy hiring assessments and multiple rounds of interviews, can turn candidates off.
Plus, companies with a more efficient hiring process can nab top candidates faster, leaving others to hire from the “best of the rest.”
Turning Your Hiring Process into a Competitive Advantage
Many organizations struggle to identify high-quality, best-fit candidates without drawing out the hiring process and turning them off with lengthy, high-friction tests.
How can hiring leaders get the objective, predictive applicant insights they need without slowing down the hiring process and sacrificing applicant goodwill?
Talent Select AI’s next generation Conversational Interview Assessment makes it possible, using natural language processing to extract job-relevant candidate insights right from the transcript of the job interview – with Talent Select AI, the interview is the assessment.
And because the interview is the assessment, it can’t be faked or gamed for desired results, it doesn’t drag out the hiring process, and it can’t be impacted by interviewer bias.
Talent Select AI matches the words candidates use to describe themselves and their experiences to validated, job-related Motivational Traits, Professional Competencies, and Personality Traits to quickly identify best-fit candidates for each unique role.
“It’s no secret that both candidates and recruiters are dissatisfied with the modern hiring process,” says Talent Select AI CTO Will Rose. “That’s why we set out to build a tool that gives employers more validated and predictive candidate insight data than ever before – without administering a single test – providing a significant competitive advantage in their hiring processes.”
Is your hiring process costing you top candidates?
Schedule a free consultation to see first-hand how Talent Select AI can decrease time to hire, support diversity, equity and inclusion, and help drive better hiring outcomes.
